8 March - Women's Day

Today I want to receive freshly bloomed tulips. And you? Conventional. Perhaps. But spring-darling. Look, I even invented a new word!

One could speak at length and breadth about the historical events in the context of the date of 8 March. Both about the demonstrations of women from a sewing company on the streets of New York in 1857 demanding equal treatment, and about the call heard by Clara Zetkin at the Copenhagen women's conference in 1910 to establish International Women's Day, and about the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which to this bright day has not been recognised by Iran, Somalia and Sudan, and has not been ratified by the Vatican and the USA.

The most well-known defender of women's rights in Latvia was the poetess Aspazija, whose speeches at the sessions of the Constitutional Assembly urged the incorporation of provisions in the Latvian Civil Law allowing marriage to be concluded not only in a church but also civilly, and which gave the possibility to submit a divorce petition at the woman's initiative. As in her plays, she also emphasised in her prose and journalism that a woman must assume the role of a priestess in society - to bring the light of the spirit to the nation.

But not about that today.

I wish to spring-lovingly greet all women, ladies, dames, wonderful girls, gals, babes, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, colleagues, teachers and unknown passers-by on this day and invite everyone to savour every beautiful moment of life that lies ahead of us!

***
Three women in their timeless manifestations -
As the beloved,
As the wife,
As the mother -
Through flowers and snows I have forced my way,
To fathom the essence.

/Ā.Elksne/

***
Woman...
you are rich -
there is something to pray for
something to guard
you are rich -
you have something to love
to cherish
you are rich
if you can
love and forgive
you are rich
if you can give
and devote...

/I.Tora/

***
You smiled at me on the street
Where the small errands of the day run by,
And your eyes were darkly large
Like those of an Eastern princess.

From you breathed a strange closeness
And the fresh aroma of midnight gardens,
And it still carried me long after
Through the city like a gentle wave.

/J.Ziemeļnieks/